The Train Robbers

• John Wayne: Lane
• Rod Taylor: Grady
• Ben Johnson: Jesse
• Christopher George Calhoun
• Bobby Vinton: Ben Young
• Jerry Gatlin: Sam Turner
• Ricardo Montalban: The Pinkerton Man

Dirty Gold ( Original title: The Train Robbers ) is an American Western from 1973 with John Wayne in the lead role. The film was shot from 23 March to June 1972 in the Mexican state of Durango and launched in early February 1973, distributed by Warner Bros. in the American cinema. For the production of the U.S. Batjac Productions was responsible. In the Federal Republic of Germany, the film was released on February 15, 1973 by Warner - Columbia film distribution.

Action

The prey of a railway robbery stored in a wrecked train in the desert. The widow of the slain in the attack leader of the robbers, Mrs. Lowe, hires Lane and five of his friends to make sure the stolen gold. She claims to want to return the gold of the Rio Grande Railroad, so her son has a good memory of his father. The reward of $ 50,000 to the railway company promises Lane and his friends. The adventurers take on the surviving members of the band of robbers and a Pinkerton detective, making them the gold in dispute. When she finally Mrs. Lowe have in Liberty, Texas, handed over the loot, Lane and his friends generously waive their money, that the Son of Mrs. Lowe can get a proper education. When the train is just about to leave, she explains to the detective from the platform of the last car of that woman the widow of the robber is not, but an impostor named Lilli, who is on the gold treasure. She was shot as a prostitute in the brothel in which Lowe behind. Lanes squad riding behind the train to the gold to get again.

Criticism

The New York Times noted predictable and unimportant turns in the story, but the film was of " insight, camaraderie and reconciliation " was coined, and permeated by a "good feeling ". The cast was great; John Wayne cautiously, Ben Johnson and Rod Taylor would deliver beautiful, restrained representations. The Times wrote that director Burt Kennedy " usually a lot funnier and more cutting " as told in this " lengthy history ". Even the Motion Picture Guide Missing "substance" and "style".

The filmdienst wrote of a " substantial [n ] self-dramatization John Wayne " and that Dirty Gold " nothing more than the expression of faith that only the ' strong individual ' for guiding and handling critical situations was called. " Wayne WOULD many close-ups " in carrier obesity as a parody of himself " and causing involuntary distance and ridicule. A similar response, the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper that described the protagonist as "walking ( s ) fossil" and pithy pathos instead of " sentimentality and melancholy of the late Western " mattered. The Süddeutsche Zeitung pointed to the less intrusive design out: " After the lurid escapades of recent years a descriptive, sober Western New Beginning ".

The lexicon of the International film ruled that the film is a Western " fairly traditional style " was. It was "not a very own handwriting" recognizable. Playboy wrote that the film was " Disneyland closer than Dodge City ", but benefit from the interaction of Ann -Margret with the Western Icons Wayne, Taylor, Johnson, Montalban and Vinton. Phil Hardy described the film as "inferior Wayne westerns ," the still the echo of Kennedy's screenplays for Budd Boetticher Western On your own, and one does not give up show, but will not meet the needs of the main characters meet, nor the vitality of Kennedy Western comedies a Local Sheriff and Latigo have.